unsaid

Inspiration

We were inspired by the concept of "Exulansis," or the tendency to not share important experiences because of a fear of others being unable to relate or understand. Given the growing loneliness epidemic, especially among youth and the elderly, we felt the need to build a product that addressed the increasingly crucial aspect of connection between community members, especially through stories and experiences.

What it does

unsaid is an app built to house people's stories in a simple way. Users can add media, descriptions, and explanations of their unique stories and experiences, which are both kept for their future reference, and also optionally shared with people with similar experiences. There are also multiple community-based options for users to see other people's stories, and thus feel validated in their experiences while learning from other users too.

How we built it

We created design prototypes and the core design theme in Figma, creating the basic user flow and app pages. From there, we added the designs into Figma Make to add additional functionality like buttons, videos, and interactive components. We also published the Figma Make product into a functioning website for the purposes of the demo.

Challenges we ran into

We struggled with best understanding how to help users communicate their unique stories. The concept of "exulansis" innately means that users don't know the best way to communiate the stories they want to tell to other people, and that difficulty similarly persists even when typing a story in our app. Therefore, the ability to add feelings, images, and videos when creating a new entry, as well as unique echoes like song lyrics and poems, were our attempt to supplement storytelling with new, unconventional mediums.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were able to fully build out our product, including multiple features like a map, sentiment analysis, and the ability to add echoes. As a result, unsaid has a large range of features and options available to users, all of which enhance the user experience and really help users feel understood and heard in their storytelling.

What we learned

We learned a lot about how to use Figma Make in tandem with Design, namely working back and forth to create components in Design, transfer them and augment them in Make, and bring the finished product back to Design. We also learned how best to create a user flow, focusing on avoiding overwhelming users with too many options and things to do at once, and instead creating a natural, intuitive user flow.

What's next for unsaid

Next, we would want to fully develop the safeguards for unsaid, namely aspects like misuse protection, user privacy, and further resources in the event of self-harm. Through these additions, unsaid would fully accomplish its wellness goal, providing users not only a means to express themselves, but also a vibrant community with the resources and interactions available to make them feel heard and integrated into the broader community.